Imani Jacqueline Brown

I first learned about the Centre for Research Architecture in April 2014 while delivering a paper on the biopolitics of trans-cultural, trans-temporal temporary autonomous zones of resistance at the 5th annual Latin American and European Meeting on Organization Studies (LAEMOS) in Havana, Cuba. My paper was nominated for best in the Alternative Places and Spaces of Organizing subtheme, and, sensing a connection with my subjects of inquiry, the subtheme convener suggested that I look at the work of Forensic Architecture.

As soon as I returned to the US and to internet access I checked out FA’s website and knew then the path my near future would take. It would be four years before I finally made it to London to join the Centre and the FA stream. In the meanwhile, I co-founded Blights Out, a collective of artists, activists, and architects working to demystify and democratize development in post-Katrina New Orleans in June 2014. In 2015, I traveled to COP 21 to help establish the international Museum Liberation Movement as part of #FossilFreeCulture. I’ve been a core member of Occupy Museums, an artist/activist collective formed in 2011 during Occupy Wall Street to challenge the commodification and financialization of art and culture, since 2011; in 2017, our project, “Debtfair”, was featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. From 2016-2018, I worked as Director of Programs at Antenna, New Orleans.

In 2018, through the auspices of Antenna, I founded and served as Artistic Director of Fossil Free Fest, a festival of art, food, music, films, and conversations about the ethics and complexities of funding art and education with fossil fuel industry money. I was a board member of Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, a community land trust that built New Orleans' first permanently affordable housing from 2017-18.

It’s thrilling to be here in London in the program I dreamed of joining. I find the department to be stimulating and the prospects of the unfolding year to be absolutely thrilling. As for the future beyond graduation, I’d say it’s too early to tell! I have often been one to plan my future from miles off and I am trying at this time to just be comfortable in the process––discovering new things about myself, my interests, my work process, and by world-view. I don’t want miss out on the journey by daydreaming about the destiny.